"No, you don't," Torin said, his voice gentle.

"Yes, I do. I can see disapproval on your faces. I know what I'm doing and why, so just respect that." Torin's eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything. Andris appeared amused by the whole situation.

Raine looked worried and I was sure she'd tell me in excruciating detail why I shouldn't be messing with a dark soul. "Is he the one you were with on Saturday when you called me?"

I nodded. "I was careful. I only agreed to help him once I realized he wasn't after me. And please, don't tell Echo. He cannot know about this morning with those two. I mean it, Andris," I added when he opened his mouth. "He's already alienated enough Grimnirs without making things worse."

"But you will tell him," Torin said as we started toward the school.

"Yes."

"When?"

Pushy much? I sighed. "When I'm ready, Torin."

"What were you doing when she got attacked?" Torin asked, his blue eyes flashing as he focused on Andris. "You were supposed to keep an eye on her the second she left her car."

"I did," Andris shot back. "Besides, I was to protect her against dark souls, not idiotic Grimnirs. She was done with them and was walking toward me, and that's when it happened." He glanced at me, expression remorseful. "Sorry about that, blondie."

"No need to be sorry." I shot Torin a glance. "It's not his fault. I told him they were Echo's friends and I wanted to talk to them alone. I didn't know Nara would lose it when I refused to tell her where Dev is hiding."

Silence followed, then Andris slid beside me. "Since he's not tethered to you, where are you hiding him?"

"What does he look like?" Raine asked from my other side.

I managed to evade their questions, but I knew I was only delaying the inevitable. One more gang-up on me and I'd cave in.

CHAPTER 9. MY POOR CAR.

Raine escorted me to class and runed my English teacher, Mrs. Bosnick, so I couldn't talk to Dev.

After first period, I was so ready for some serious soul ass-kicking. I hurried to my locker, dropped off my backpack, grabbed the books I needed for the rest of the morning, and practically ran to the nearest restroom. A girl was checking her reflection in the mirror.

"Out!" I snapped.

She blinked and opened her mouth, but something in my eyes stopped her. She harrumphed and left. I locked the door and pulled out my cell phone.

"Are you still there, Dev?"

"I'm here. Thanks for letting me lay low and not telling the Valkyries where I was."

"You'll have to meet them sometime. They're my friends. Why didn't you tell me the other Grimnirs were after you?" I asked, not masking my annoyance. "That bitch Nara tried to strangle me, and when Echo hears about it, and he will... He'll go all Hulk on everyone."

"Okay. Enough with the yelling. I'm dead, not deaf."

"If you want me to help you, mister, cut out the smart-alecky remarks."

He sighed. "The others have been after me for centuries, so I do what I can to lay low and avoid them."

The conversation with Echo about dark shadows flashed in my head. "Like what?"

"I hide in electronics, but they can force me out of them. Their scythes are too powerful for Mortal gadgets."

Someone tried to open the bathroom, but I pretended not to notice. "Ever possess Mortals?"

"Yeah. Everyone does."

"Doesn't mean you have to do it," I said. A banging ensued on the door. "Go away," I yelled.

"In my defense, it was like being alive again. I could feel, eat, and make love again." He sighed. "By the time I realized what it was doing to me, it was too late. The darkness had crept in. But I stopped and use animals now."

Thoughts of rabid dogs and psycho cats flashed through my head. "What happens to the humans you possess?"

"It depends on whether they're willing to work with me or not. Unfortunately, Mortals don't trust what they don't see. We could let them share the experience, but since they're not interested, we take over completely. When we do, they have blackouts."

This was way, way out of my league. "It doesn't sound like a good thing to do."

"No, it's not. You stay too long, they go crazy. No one cares about wild animals or the dead."

I stared at my phone as his words sank in. "The dead? Holy crap! You're talking about zombies."

He chuckled. "Yep. Uh, don't you have to go to your next class?"

I looked at my watch. Dang. The info he was giving me was more interesting, and the banging on the door was beginning to piss me off.

"Can we talk later? I want to hear more."

"Great. I miss talking. Most Mortals lose it when I try to make contact."

Yeah, I could just imagine how people would react to a talking animal. "Then lucky you I'm a willing listener. You can contact me any time after I leave my home."

"Oh, come on. Why can't I come to your bedroom and hang out? I could watch you do your hair."

Was he there on Sunday when I'd treated my hair? "We have to set boundaries, and you know mine. I don't want you listening to my phone calls or reading my texts."

"What? Do you receive dirty texts from Echo? Naked selfies?"

"Out!"

He slithered out of my phone, bowed, and disappeared through the wall. Shaking my head, I opened the bathroom to find the girl I'd kicked out with a couple of her friends waiting outside the door. They glared.

"Why didn't you knock?" I asked.

"We did," one of them said.

"Weird, I didn't hear knocking, just someone making a ruckus in the hallway," I said and grinned as I walked away. Their eyes shot death rays at my back.

For the rest of the morning, I kept going over the things Dev had told me. I didn't want to feel sorry for him, yet I couldn't help myself. How did Teleia fit into his betrayal?

I was by the lockers putting my books away when Raine joined me. She was minus Torin. She looked sad or tired.

"Please, tell me you're eating lunch here," she said.

"Why?" I'd been planning on going to Echo's.

"I don't feel like going home for lunch." Pain flashed in her eyes. Her father's prolonged illness was seriously screwing with her. Torin tended to distract her, but when he wasn't around, the pain and despair in her eyes intensified.

I linked our arms and led her toward the cafeteria. "Where's Torin?"

"As of this morning, he and Andris are working part time in Carson."

Someone was about to die. "Who's Carson?"

"A training camp for soccer players or some sport."

"And your mom?"

"Keeping an eye on a college team in Washington," Raine said, making a face. "She even has a partner. I'm still not used to the whole my-mother-is-a-reaper thing. Anyway, Lavania is coming back tomorrow."

"Great! I need to work on my speed runes. Oh, don't tell her about Dev." She gave me a blank look. "The soul I'm helping. I have a feeling she won't approve."

Raine rolled her eyes. "For starters, I wouldn't after the speech and look you gave us. Second, she's the coolest person I know and might surprise you. And third, don't you mean the dark soul?" she asked in a whisper.

"Shut up." I pushed her with my shoulder.

"Dev, the dark soul. Sounds like a title of a romance novel." She pushed me back. "When you decide to do something, you go all the way."

"No lectures, please. Happy souls, sad souls, regular souls, or dark souls, I'm an equal opportunity Soul Whisperer." The girl I'd kicked out of the bathroom walked past us with her two friends and turned to glare.

"What was that about?" Raine asked, frowning.

"They needed the bathroom when I was conferring with Dev. Like there's only one bathroom in the freaking school." She stopped smiling. "I know. I know. I should be careful when it comes to what we are. You will not believe what he told me."

I was still dazzling Raine with my knowledge of all things souls when we turned the corner and I groaned. Drew and his jock friends were by the entrance of the cafeteria. Because Maliina, the Immortal-turn-evil-Norn, had seduced then ditched him before Andris dispatched her to Hel, Drew treated me like I had crawled from a sewer. It was not my fault Maliina had chosen to mimic me while I was in the psych ward and screwed with his head.

Raine slowed down when I did. "Ignore him," she said.

"I can't. Part of me feels sorry for him. He must have really been into her, and seeing me just reminds him of what they had. Can't you erase his memories or something? Make him forget their affair."

Raine grimaced. "I'm not ready to do something that grand."

She was right. She might have Norn abilities, but she was still learning. "I just hate the way he stares at me like I'm lower than a worm."

"Actually, when you're not looking, he wears a different kind of look."

"Yeah, like he knows intimate stuff about me." Echo who'd slept with Maliina had also thought he knew personal things about my body down to scars in intimate places. "Maybe I should just talk to him and apologize."

"No. You don't want to do that. Just stay away from him. Come on. Paste on a smile and no eye contact."

Raine did the talking when we reached the guys. I pretended to listen and avoided looking at Drew. I rarely ate at the cafeteria, so our paths didn't cross often.

Inside the cafeteria, Kicker and Sondra waved at us from a table. They were both on the swim team and I considered them friends now. Sort of. They didn't know about the new me or what I could do. Naya used to be part of their group, but she hooked up with one of Drew's buddies and ditched us for the jocks' table. Funny, I was the one who'd taken them to Drew's party. Drew, I noticed, didn't come in to eat. Or maybe he was part of the first lunch.

Lunch was chicken nuggets with mashed potatoes and watery gravy. It was usually either thick and lumpy or watery depending on whether you were first or last in line.

"I'm so ready for the prom," Kicker said, twirling a lock of her hair, a nasty habit she'd recently picked up. She shot me a beseeching look. "You're still planning on doing our hair and makeup, right?"

"Depends. Will you drive out to the farm?" I asked, hoping they'd decide the distance wasn't worth it. The prom was Friday night, and we had a half-day because of Teachers' Work Day. I had been looking forward to the prom, but now all I could think about was helping Dev and Echo.

"Umm..." Kicker and Sondra exchanged a glance then looked at Raine, probably hoping she would suggest her house as a temporary salon. She didn't. Instead, she chewed on a chicken nugget and smiled without commenting. With the stuff going on at her house, the last thing she needed was nosy girls. And Kicker was the mistress of gossip.

"Yes. We don't mind," Kicker said.

"Then come to my house right after school," I said. "I can do you guys first. Have you gotten your outfits?"

"Last week," Kicker said.

"Mom is making mine," Sondra said. "She can recreate any gown down to the finest details. I found exactly what I wanted and she's almost done."

"Your mom is a seamstress?" I asked, leaning forward.

Confusion flashed in Sondra's gray eyes. "Yeah. I thought you knew."

"No, I didn't. I must meet her."

She glanced at Kicker, who shrugged.

"I always adjust gowns I buy to fit these." I pointed at my chest. "Or I look like a hooker or the president of the PTA." Raine laughed, and I glanced at her. "We all can't just walk into a store and pick up a size two and rock it."

Raine rolled her eyes. "I'm a size four, not two. When are they posting junior prom court?"

The teachers usually nominated six couples for the prom king and queen, and the couples formed prom court. For junior prom, they posted the list the day before the prom. For senior prom, it was posted a week early.

"You shouldn't even worry about it, Raine," Kicker said. "You and Torin are the most popular couple, so you'll be nominated to the court and maybe even win. The only problem is you," she pointed at me, "will be nominated, too. Everyone reads your blog, so you're a shoo-in. The question is who will we," she pointed Sondra and herself, "vote for?"

"Cora," Raine said and pushed her food around her plate. "I don't want to be nominated."

"Too bad," I said. "You might even be a princess in the senior court because of Torin." I didn't mind being a queen, but I doubted I'd have chance if I went against Raine.

The conversation shifted to books and their movies. The good, the bad, and the epic failures. Of course, they blamed the producers, not their favorite authors for okaying the actors. Sondra and Kicker only read paranormal and fantasy. Raine read anything that caught her interest. It was hard for me to get lost in anything but contemporary books. One was recently made into a movie, a real tearjerker. Luckily, it was a bestseller and we all watched the movie. We dissected every scene.